Word on the street is Games Workshop is expanding to meet demand. Check out their latest rumored plans including their new warehouse Roombas.
If you remember a little while back, the Sisters of Battle Army Set was completely sold out in a matter of minutes for hobbyists in the US. That should give a pretty good picture of where the supply/demand of GW products lies. With so much success of the company, and only one major warehouse to supply 150 stores in the US, there are rumors beginning to emerge on GW expanding and upgrading.
Before we jump into the latest rumors, it’s important to note that this isn’t the first time we’ve heard about these rumors as we covered some of the Memphis warehouse expansion in January of 2019.
Memphis Warehouse Expanded in 2019
Giving you the cliff notes on the Memphis expansion project:
The distribution center sat as a 100,000 Sq ft building, but plans are being put in place to expand it another 50,000 ft.
Coming from Tom Chipley, the North American logistics manager for GW:
The company has operated at the Memphis site for 15 years and it’s time to expand and update the facility
Renovations aren’t all they’re doing. To keep up with the increasing demand of the hobby, they’ll be updating the way they move product.
Among the improvements will be the addition of a new picking system for the warehousing operation
Be sure to check out the full scoop on the Memphis warehouse from earlier in the year if you haven’t already. While we first heard of all this at the beginning of 2019, more rumors and reports have emerged on GW’s expansion.
More Rumors Emerge on GW’s Warehouse Expansion & More LATEST
Coming from Faeit 212, who says this comes from an anonymous source, more on Warehouse expansion and the future of some of GW’s biggest titles were mentioned.
- GW is buying more warehouse space as well as machines for managing daily warehouse duties as well as expanding for logistics.
- The design studio is being split into smaller categories of workers (i.e a specific 40k team, a specific Horus Heresy team, a specific Age of Sigmar team, etc. etc.). We’ve actually already seen GW mention their expansion into individualized studios earlier in the year hidden within the report from an event.
- Horus Heresy is set to become a “historical” game to 40k’s lore progression. Warhammer- The Old World (basically WHFB) is going to be the historical version of Age of Sigmar.
- Springboarding off of a focus to Horus Heresy and Warhammer- The Old World, GW is developing cheaper ways to get into the game.
- In general, there will also be an overall expansion of specialist games like Titanicus as well as more media outlets. (TV shows, films, computer games, etc.).
Overall, it looks like a generalized expansion across the company. From warehouse tech to individualized design studios, things are looking positive. While demand is going up and they are in the process of equalizing, GW wouldn’t want to plateau after they ONLY increase warehouse competency. For even better releases to come, it also makes sense for them to expand on rules and design teams. And as a relatively new aspect of GW, they are expanding into more media sources. That way, it’ll help even more people join the hobby community.
Robots & Warehouse Expansion
Image From Hikrobotics
Faeit touched on the Warehouse expansion above mentioning some kind of machines. However, coming from another Industry Insider, they mentioned what could be the exact machine they’re getting. Here’s what they had to say:
Workshop has been growing. Now they’re making things more automated with IRL robots. It’s called something like a Hikrobot– a smart machine that can pull orders from shelves and recharge itself (like a Roomba).
One year later, it still seems like GW is continuing to grow and is reacting by expansion in multiple areas. With all of this covered above, do you think individualized design studios will make for faster releases and better rules? What’s one specialist game you’d love to see GW dive in on?
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About the Author: Wesley Floyd
Wesley Floyd
Job Title: Staff Writer
Joined: 2018
Socials: @RealmbrushPainting
About Wesley Floyd: Wes has been in the Warhammer hobby since 2015 and joined the Spikey Bits writing team in 2018. He is known for his satirist takes on trending topics and imaginative yet amazingly affordable hobby solutions to painting Warhammer miniatures.
Imperial fanboy, tabletop fanatic, and the self-proclaimed King of Sprues. He knows for a fact that Mephiston red is the best-tasting paint and is the commission painting equivalent of a Wendy’s 4 for $4. If you like what he writes and want to contact him or have your tabletop minatures painted (to a mostly okayish standard), message him on Instagram.
